The Leader of the Pack
by draylon
Summary: Muzluk, an Uruk-hai, has some attentions forced upon him, not too explicitly, from a bigger, meaner Uruk, then hangs about Isengard, brooding, before the Battle of Helm’s Deep. All the Uruks swear like navvies throughout.


The Leader of the Pack

Muzluk dropped to his knees in front of Ghazhack. Then he remembered himself, and the good manners that Ghazhack always demanded – or at least seemed to insist on from Muzluk, at any rate. "Which end do you want to start with?" he said.

"Hear that, boys!" Ghazhack roared, "Muzluk's asking me so nicely!" Mainly he was aiming to attract the attention of any Uruks in the pack who hadn't already noticed what was going on, but not many heads turned. The sight of their leader Ghazhack, fucking Muzluk, was not a particularly noteworthy spectacle, these days.

"Say that again," Ghazhack told Muzluk. "Louder. Then turn round. I fancy doing you from behind."

"I already –"Muzluk began, but quickly stopped himself. Perhaps he'd noticed Loguz and Bruwesh, Ghazhack's trusty lieutenants, who were standing by, idly, a short way off. It never hurt to have a little back up, Ghazhack always thought, particularly when you were dealing with Muzluk.

Muzluk repeated his question in a louder voice, as he stared straight ahead, focussing on nothing in particular. Then he turned round on his hands and knees and waited for Ghazhack to get started.

Actually, Ghazhack thought, unfastening the lacings that held the lower part of his tunic together at the front, he would probably have preferred it if Muzluk had elected to start something this time; he always gave as good as he got, did Muzluk, and it would have been a fine chance for the boys to work out some of their pent-up frustrations, with a good old-fashioned ruck. Muzluk was getting too smart for that though. Maybe they'd done him over one too many times, and finally managed to knock a bit of sense into that thick head of his. Maybe at last he'd realised that he was never going to win, not on his own against Ghazhack and all Ghazhack's lieutenants. Now Muzluk just said "yes" and "no" and went along whatever it was you wanted – or, not went along, perhaps; it was more that he'd simply stopped fighting back. As if he couldn't be bothered. Hell, there wasn't even much sport in fucking him, not any more.

Ghazhack carelessly flipped the back edge of Muzluk's garment out of the way, revealing Muzluk's firm, red-brown, buttocks. You could say what you liked about Muzluk - and Ghazhack, having been wound up far too many times by Muzluk's churlish, failure-to-play-in-the-team attitude usually did, but there was no denying that Muzluk did have a magnificent arse on him. He really and truly did. Absently, Ghazhack began to fuck it.

As Ghazhack thrust into him, Muzluk held himself steady and did not react, and Ghazhack felt a flicker of fresh irritation towards the other Uruk. He wasn't sure he could be bothered with all this, tonight. Trust Muzluk. A bit more defiance from him, and Ghazhack would have had all the excuse he needed for ordering the others to rough him up a bit on Ghazhack's behalf. That would have cleared the air no end; his boys had been going stir-crazy for days, being confined to barracks, indoors in the dormitory hall. All above-ground training had summarily been cancelled, and there was only so much kit-polishing and packing of equipment and weapon-sharpening that could occupy an Uruk at the best of times. Ghazhack knew what was coming up, he was sure he did. Soon they would be marching out against their neighbours, the Horse-Boys of Rohan, to start the war. But the White Wizard Sharkey, their Master, was biding his time, waiting for exactly the right moment to set his troops out. And it was the waiting that was the problem.

Thinking of his coming duties, combined with Muzluk's infuriating lack of reaction were almost enough to make Ghazhack lose his hard-on, and that would be an unthinkable thing to have happen, here in front of the whole pack. Ghazhack raked his claws deeply into Muzluk's sides and back, and felt the agreeable sensation of Muzluk jerking himself forwards slightly, in pain and surprise. Simultaneously, Muzluk's buttocks clenched around Ghazhack's cock, most satisfactorily, so he repeated the action, but this time Muzluk must have been prepared for it, for he did not react at all.

Ghazhack wasn't sure whether he hated Muzluk more when he caught Muzluk watching him, studying him with that thoughtful, superior fucking, holier-than-thou look in his eye, or when Muzluk was deliberately choosing to ignore Ghazhack completely, taking no notice whatsoever of his clamouring and shouting and pose-striking, no matter how impressive Ghazhack was trying to be. That fucking Muzluk always seemed to be assessing him, Ghazhack thought, sizing Ghazhack up, as if Muzluk fancied, somehow, that he was a better Uruk than Ghazhack. Better than his leader – as if that could ever happen!

At last, Ghazhack finished off, with a series of vicious thrusts that threatened to compress Muzluk's spine, and made him see stars, that flickered and darted sickeningly, right in front of his eyes. Muzluk dropped his head and dug his claws further into the beaten-earth floor of the cavern, as Ghazhack pulled roughly out of his body. He concentrated hard on trying to regulate his breathing. When he had a hold of himself again he raised his head to find his pack-mate Nogreb very close by, standing over him. Nogreb was smaller than most people, quite lightly built and slightly bow-legged. He had large ears and an asymmetrical cast to his features that made him look much more Orcish than like an Uruk proper, and just like a tricksy, devious Orc, Nogreb spent most of his time trying to gain status in the pack by ingratiating himself with Ghazhack and Ghazhack's lieutenants. Unluckily for him he was not very bright either, and in general they found very little of quality in him, excepting perhaps his usefulness as a scapegoat.

Nogreb was getting his cock out and seeing this, Muzluk snarled at him savagely, his face wrinkling back and lips pulling clear of his fangs, fully exposing all his teeth.

"What d'you think you're doing?" Ghazhack shouted, shoving Nogreb's shoulder and pushing him off.

"You said Muzluk was a in-, he was an in-sub, in-sub-thingy," Nogreb replied. "You know, a troublemaker. Right pain in the arse. You said he needed showing what's what, didn't yer, boss? So my turn now, I reckon, right?"

"If you think you can take him," said Ghazhack casually, at the same time cleaning himself off, and rearranging his tunic, "go right ahead. If you, Nogreb," he repeated, 'think you can take Muzluk on, and no backup mind, you be my guest."

Looking stricken, Nogreb scooted back into the ranks of Uruks who were lounging around them.

Much as he detested Muzluk, it fell upon Ghazhack to keep a certain kind of order in his camp, and order would not be served if Nogreb dared to try anything reckless. The moment the smaller Uruk tried to lay a hand – or any other body part - on him, Muzluk's response would simply be to rip the offending organ off, and chuck it on the fire; this had happened before, more than once, in fact, and Ghazhack could well do without having any additional, nine-fingered Uruks in his pack's ranks, especially at the moment, so soon before a critically important battle. Ghazhack was a traditionalist, and he felt that certain standards of behaviour needed to be maintained. Muzluk was a surly, insubordinate bugger who regularly needed to be put in his place, and being bigger than Muzluk and stronger than Muzluk and moreover Muzluk's leader, it fell to Ghazhack to do his duty in this respect. There weren't a lot of them would have much of a chance one-on-one against Muzluk, to be honest, and that daft pillock Nogreb? He wouldn't have lasted even half a minute.

Muzluk gave it a moment, then got to his feet. Ghazhack had already left, and the attention of the pack, centred as always, on its leader, had shifted too. Their pack's camp area was in a slightly privileged position in the great hall; it was placed directly against one of the rocky walls of the underground chamber, so that on one side it had an actual, as well as a notional boundary. This wall was used as storage and hanging area, for various bits and pieces of Uruk-ish battle kit. Muzluk moved towards it now, and leaned against it, heavily. He wouldn't be sitting down, not for a while, anyway. Though on the whole, it could have been worse. Muzluk could tell that Ghazhack's heart hadn't really been in it, but all the same, he had hurt him quite considerably. This was because Muzluk had already been raw and sore from a previous, and much more vigorous seeing-to he'd recently received from Ghazhack. Twice in one week, he thought, sourly. That was quite unprecedented. Anyone else in the pack would have felt flattered, to be receiving such frequent attentions from their glorious leader.

What Muzluk really needed now was a little first aid, and he knew from past experience that he was going to have to be the one to apply it himself. There was a communal pot of healing salve, something awful that Sharkey had concocted and given them, kept in one of the alcoves in the cavern wall. Reluctantly, Muzluk scooped up a fingerful or two of the noxious goo, and reached round to apply it to his rump. The first touch of it was a sharp, stinging agony that took his breath away and Muzluk, his eyes watering, staggered against the wall, muttering a string of Orcish curses, deep in his throat. Pacing up and down, waiting for the dreadful burning sensation caused by the ointment to subside, Muzluk noticed a couple of the others staring over at him, watching his discomfiture and grinning from ear to ear. Resolutely, Muzluk turned away from them. He couldn't afford to go getting in another fight, not the way he felt right now, that was for sure. He looked about. Most of the other Uruks in his pack were standing with their backs to him, intent on spectating, at whatever it was that Ghazhack was getting up to next. Wrestling someone manfully to the ground, by the sounds of it. Everybody was very keen on that sort of activity, and usually, for the look of the thing, Muzluk would have joined in with them, no matter how badly he was feeling. But he couldn't bring himself to do that, not at the moment.

Perhaps, Muzluk thought, brightening slightly, he could spend a little time with Bur-kesh instead. Bur-kesh and Muzluk quite often fucked each other, enjoying easy, satisfying sex that had nothing to do with the expression of dominance, or the exhibitionist point-scoring in which Muzluk had been such an unwilling participant earlier on. Even better than that, after they'd completed their sexual tusslings, Bur-kesh occasionally invited Muzluk to sleep with him, or if they were nearer Muzluk's quarters they might even spend the night lying together, close and comfortable, in his own bed-roll. Muzluk would have liked that very much, tonight, but he realized that Bur-kesh was already sleeping; he could hear the familiar sound of Bur-kesh's snoring, drifting across their living area. Proximity to the other Uruk's solid, slumbering, bulk was about as restful as anything Muzluk could possibly think of, but even so, he was damned if he was going to go letting himself ask for it.

Impulsively, Muzluk crossed the camp area in a few quick strides and took up the slop bucket, a rough, largish vessel that served his pack as a communal, indoor latrine. It wasn't quite full enough yet to need emptying, but Muzluk had had enough of it, stewing and fretting down here with everyone else; he badly needed a change of scene. He set out for one of the wide walkways that connected the subterranean dormitory hall to the surface. He was going to get outside for a breather if it killed him.

"Where d'you think you're off to, this time of night, Muzluk?" The guard who was manning the exit stepped out in front of Muzluk, blocking his way.

Muzluk sloshed his bucket carelessly at the gate-guard, almost splashing him with its noisome contents. The other Uruk jumped back, fastidiously.

"Funny enough time for doing that, innit?"

"Ghazhack told me I was to do it," Muzluk said, keeping his voice even. That seemed fair enough to the guard, who, understanding some of the past intricacies of the relationship between Ghazhack and Muzluk, let Muzluk past readily enough.

The Uruks' hall opened on to a side-arm running off the main pit of Isengard, which kept it adequately, if draughtily, ventilated. The main pit itself was a ragged gash in the earth, a furlong and a half wide, and more than twice as deep. It had been delved out under instructions of Sharkey, the White Wizard, and in this great, galleried space his Orcs and Uruks worked tirelessly, carrying out endless machinations and preparations for war. Day and night were relative terms in the White Wizard's fortress at present. There was always some kind of urgent activity going on these days, and though his Uruk-ish battle force happened to be resting idle for the moment, at night, the Orc-tended forges and factories of Isengard continued to be stoked, and would keep working now, indefinitely.

From the hall, which was at a low level, deep in the earth, it was a long climb up to the ground surface and on arriving there, Muzluk paused for a while, standing on the lip of the pit. An odd distortion of perception, caused by the size and the scale of the huge, man-made chasm that was laid out before him gave Muzluk the fleeting impression that he was standing raised at a great height, rather than on relatively flat, level ground. As he stood there, all at once a great, ear-splitting roar – of thousands of rough voices all shouting and cheering together savagely, delightedly - rose up from the pit, and echoed past him, out into the night. Muzluk even fancied he could feel the call through the soles of his feet, as if the ground itself trembled, shaking with faint reverberations. He knew very well what all this meant. The call had come for the White Wizard's army to march to war.

Muzluk turned his back on the clamour, and the rising smoke and the hundreds of flickering fire-lights that glowed up from the great pit of Isengard. The night outside smelled old, and a three-quarters waning moon was low in the sky, close to setting behind the Isen plain off to the south-east. Muzluk picked his way for some distance across pock-marked, scarified earth, that had been churned and gouged by countless, iron-shod Orc-feet, towards the bed of the River Isen. There was a steep bluff in the river bank, that had been cut deep into gravely soil by the long-vanished current. Muzluk emptied his bucket over the edge, but there came no watery splash, because nowadays, the Isen ran almost dry. Like the earth he'd had laid open below him, and the air he'd made black with the stink and soot from his continually-burning fires, the Wizard had sought to control even the river-water that had flowed through his domain, and he'd caused the Isen to be dammed some time ago, far up in the mountains, upstream of his fortress and the pit. He had left the sunshine alone, so far at any rate, but being a Wizard involved a certain amount of trickery with the light in any case, and Muzluk wouldn't have been at all surprised to learn that he had full designs on that also.

Muzluk moved absently back along the river-bank, deliberately taking as much time as possible over his errand. His breath crystallised in front of him, huffing out in great, hot snorts. Summertime was nearly over, and the nights were growing cold. The wind had changed, and as it swept across the plain of Isengard, down from the mountains, Muzluk could smell the scent of snow on it, a flat, watery tang that blew in from steep passes far up in the rocky heights, where no-one had ever stood.

Muzluk had been born, he'd been birthed a scant few months ago, as far as he could place it, in the Spring or so he thought, and in all his brief months of life, he had never seen or smelled or felt snow. And yet he knew with all the certainty that had been bred into his blood and his bones what that strange material is; he understood it as well as all those other, useless things that he knew without ever having been told: that the seasons would change, the sun would keep shining, and that the wind would blow. He recognised it all as clearly and close as knew the important things, that mattered, such as the place for the pulse in the side of the neck that an Uruk should bite at when he goes for the throat. And Muzluk also realised, without being told so, exactly how inconsequential he was, and powerless, in the face of the – various forces – that held and controlled him, and the knowing of it was a terrible and gnawing frustration to him.

The scent of those lonely, mountain places, high up in the starlight, far off in the dark, called to Muzluk down the long wind, across the great empty wastes of the night, and for a moment he wished he could break for them, and make an escape. But at the same time he knew also that escape was impossible for him, because like all of his comrades, he was no more than a slave, and a puppet of his Master. The Wizard had shaped them for his own purposes, one and all, as deliberately as he'd held back the water in the river, and warped the stones under his fortress, and had even altered the air that they all breathed; the Wizard was all-powerful, and from him there could be no escape.

Muzluk lingered a while longer, tarrying outside in the dark, but at last he turned, with some resignation, and made his way back to the great hall and the pit. By now the guard at the gate had changed, and Muzluk was allowed to pass without comment. The excitement of the recent call to battle was still palpable in the air, and though here and there a low Uruk-ish voice or two still rumbled in conversation, on the whole Sharkey's Uruks were sleeping, and lying quiet.

As he passed the perimeter of his pack's camp, somebody grabbed at Muzluk's ankle, as he threaded his way through the slumbering ranks of his comrades. Muzluk, wound tight with tension, started round with a gasp, almost jumping out of his skin. He saw that it was only Bur-kesh.

"You still awake too?" Bur-kesh said. "Where have you been? You're all cold, Muzluk."

Muzluk indicated the empty slop-bucket, which he set down in its proper place. Then he went back over to Bur-kesh.

"Did you hear, Muzluk?" Bur-kesh said. "Word came. We're marching out tomorrow. The war's started."

Muzluk nodded. "Where are we marching to?"

"It's called Helm's Deep. Across the gap of Rohan, at the foot of the White Mountains. The Horse-Boys have gone there. Running from us! It's more than a day's march off. Everyone's going."

"Everyone?"

"Yes. That'll be a sight to see, won't it? And it's what we've all been waiting for, haven't we!" Bur-kesh paused. "Listen, stay a bit, will you Muzluk?" he said. "I'm too excited to sleep."

Muzluk sat down, carefully, and a little self-consciously. In the warmer air of the dormitory hall, the deep gouges Ghazhack had made in his flanks earlier had begun to sting again, and he could feel blood beginning to ooze and seep from the semi-dried wounds. Hunching up slightly, he hugged his arms around himself, to hide it.

"Your back's bleeding," observed Bur-kesh, with interest.

"I was going to see about that myself. Later," Muzluk muttered.

"I'll do it for you, if you like, Muzluk," offered Bur-kesh, easily.

"You would?" Muzluk said without thinking, then quickly closed his eyes, hating himself for the hopeful note he could hear all too clearly in his own voice.

Bur-kesh did not seem to have noticed though, or if he had, he was ignoring it.

Day to day life, for the Uruks living together in the cramped conditions of a communal billet, was an intimate affair, involving a great deal of physical contact. Among the twenty four other Uruks who made up the rest of Muzluk's pack, a number of strong allegiances had quickly developed, involving two-way, or three-way or even many-way relationships, between certain pairs or groups. These interactions weren't necessarily based on sex, which was a very casual affair for Uruks, and not a matter of great note. The close relationships were more important than that, they were about mutual understanding, comradeship, and the giving and receiving of minor acts of help. An Uruk might offer to pick the lice, or scratch the back, or buckle the side-straps on the tack of anyone in the pack, but his best attentions would always be reserved for that particular mate, or mates of his, with whom he'd developed one of those much stronger, unspoken bonds. Though nothing was ever explicitly said - for an Uruk would never reveal a possible weakness by requesting help - at the same time that Uruk's mates would always be watching out for him, keeping one eye open, so he'd never be forced to ask for assistance in the first place. And even if nothing they would do for one another was strictly necessary, or even essential for life, being included in a smaller buddy-group within the pack was helpful, and warming, and gave everyone involved a strong sense of acceptance, and belonging. Muzluk – given his size and physical appearance, was never in lack of a willing bed-partner, but in spite of this he had never really been able form that particular kind of strong relationship with anybody. This had not been for want of trying.

It wasn't that Muzluk was entirely without allies among his pack-mates. It was more that Ghazhack, as their leader, had made his personal views about Muzluk quite clear: Muzluk was an Uruk who was very much out of favour, and he was likely to remain so indefinitely. Muzluk was still a member of the pack, but everybody knew that any special notice directed at him would reflect rather badly on its donor, with the result that most of his comrades kept Muzluk at something of a distance. For appearance's sake it was necessary for Muzluk to carry out his share of wound-cleaning and nit-picking and so on, but it was a rare experience indeed for him to get much in the way of reciprocation. Any attentions he'd been on the receiving end of in the past had been so brief, and embarrassingly perfunctory, that Muzluk had quickly given up seeking this kind of contact for himself altogether. He pretended it didn't bother him, of course, and on the whole it didn't. But occasionally, just occasionally, it did make a difference. Occasionally, when he would catch sight or sound of pair of Uruks, while they were tending to one another's minor aches and pains and hurts, or perhaps when one of them was groaning unselfconsciously, luxuriating in the pleasure of a well-delivered back-rub. Then, sometimes, Muzluk would wonder what that must be like, and he would feel cold, and sense his own isolation, all the more keenly for it.

Now Bur-kesh was offering to tend Muzluk's injuries, something that for anyone else would have been a casual matter of course. But his loneliness and his status as a near-outsider in his own pack were making this into something dreadfully important for Muzluk, and he hadn't much idea how he should react. Uruk rules of etiquette for most situations were effectively non-existent, but even so Muzluk really didn't want to put a foot wrong. He didn't get terribly many chances like this.

"Flip over on your front then, Muzluk," Bur-kesh instructed him, perhaps understanding some of Muzluk's confusion. He took hold of Muzluk's ankles, pulled him bodily back, into the warmer patch on the ground where until recently, he had been lying himself, then began to clean the wounds on Muzluk's back.

Muzluk flinched away from him at first, more because he hadn't really ever experienced anything like this before than because he was afraid of pain, but Bur-kesh was skilled at what he was doing, and held Muzluk steady until he had calmed somewhat. He spent a lot of time cleaning out the cuts, first swabbing out the dirt and dried blood from each scratch with his tongue, working so carefully that Muzluk felt barely any discomfort at all. On the contrary, the sensation was wonderfully soothing and comforting, and soon even the slight, residual ache from Muzluk's injuries had receded to almost nothing at all. After a time Bur-kesh slowly increased the length and pressure of his tongue-strokes and also began using his fingers and the palms of his hands to knead at the knots of tension in Muzluk's back and shoulders. Locating a particularly sensitive area at the base of Muzluk's neck, he first manipulated, then closed his mouth around it, biting hard, but not using quite enough pressure to break the skin. He held on firmly with his jaws, breathing in and out, hot and damp into Muzluk's hair, while he continued to massage him.

Muzluk couldn't stop himself, he literally squirmed with pleasure under the warmth of Bur-kesh's hands and mouth and tongue, responding with such honest satisfaction and enjoyment to Bur-kesh's ministrations that the other Uruk felt a little sad, to think that it had never occurred to him to do something like this for Muzluk before. But then Muzluk tended to play his cards very, very close to his chest. It was difficult to tell, most of the time, what he thinking, or feeling, about anything at all.

Bur-kesh didn't, in general think about anything particularly deeply, or even very much, or perhaps he would have noticed before now the air of slight unkemptness that Muzluk invariably had about him. He saw now that under Muzluk's leather shirt on his back there was quite a number of tight, raised scars. Nothing serious, but they hadn't healed nearly as well as they ought to have done, and Bur-kesh was puzzled to find them. Everyone tended to get claw-marks from fucking but then everyone knew that Uruk-scratches were liable, in fact, almost guaranteed, to become infected. All you had to do, if you couldn't reach properly for yourself, was to get someone else to clean them out for you. What must Muzluk have been thinking of, getting into such a state, Bur-kesh wondered. He really hadn't been taking proper care of himself at all.

Despite these sad thoughts, the excitement of the coming battle, together with general proximity to Muzluk and also, to some extent, Muzluk's responsiveness to Bur-kesh's handling of him were all combining to have a very predictable effect.

"Muzluk," Bur-kesh whispered, rubbing his half-hard erection sensuously against the other Uruk's thigh, "Muzluk, are you up for it?"

But Muzluk, relaxing completely under the soothing rhythm of Bur-kesh's affectionate caresses, had already fallen fast asleep. Bur-kesh considered waking him, for about a heartbeat, then thought better of it. Muzluk had looked so weary, he had looked so tired to death when Bur-kesh had caught hold of him earlier, that perhaps it would be better to leave him to sleep after all. And they would have all the time in the world for that later, once they'd fought the battle; after that he could pay Muzluk attention to his heart's content, and maybe he would have a word with the others, and they could all muck in and help clean him up a bit. Yes, thought Bur-kesh happily, he would remember and do that for Muzluk very soon, after the battle was done and they'd won it.

Bur-kesh shuffled himself alongside Muzluk, then cast an arm over to pull him close. He twitched his blanket up to cover both of them, and sighed out contentedly. Bur-kesh closed his eyes and in a few moments his breathing had regulated, to match exactly the gentle rise and fall of Muzluk's chest. After a little while, the two Uruks slept.

(Continued in 'The Death of Muzluk')


End file.
